Berlin, 22 March 2018 - PSI Group increased its operating result (EBIT) to 13.4 million euros (31 December 2016: 11.8 million euros) in the 2017 financial year. The group net result increased to 9.5 million euros (31 December 2016: 8.5 million euros), earnings per share improved accordingly to 0.61 euros (31 December 2016: 0.55 euros). At 186.1 million euros, sales increased by 5.2 % compared to the previous year (31 December 2016: 176.9 million euros). The main growth drivers were software products for production and logistics and, after a strong fourth quarter, the infrastructure segment. New orders of 190 million euros were 4.4 % above the figure for the previous year (31 December 2016: 182 million euros), the volume of orders at the end of the year was slightly below the previous year's value (31 December 2016: 129 million euros) at 128 million euros.

Energy Management (energy networks, energy trading) achieved constant sales of 69.2 million euros despite the regulatory shadow year; the segment's operating result improved by 3.4 % to 6.0 million euros (31 December, 2016: 5.8 million euros). Electrical energy was able to further increase new orders, sales and earnings, while demand in gas and pipelines recovered only slowly following the previous year’s slump in oil prices. PSI intends to grow faster again in 2018 with trend topics such as intelligent distribution grids, grid management as a service, decentralized grid management, sector coupling and charging infrastructure for electro-mobility.

Sales in Production Management (raw materials, metals production, automotive, logistics) grew by 9.1 % to 91.9 million euros (31 December 2016: 84.2 million euros), operating profit increased by 21.1 % to 8.6 million euros (31 December 2016: 7.1 million euros). Raw material extraction received the overall acceptance for the mining control system and improved its result. In metals production, PSI continued the rollouts for large corporate customers, received significant new orders from existing customers, particularly from North America and China, and significantly increased new orders, sales and earnings. Production and logistics delivered an Industry 4.0-based software suite for the optimized production of electric vehicles based on the group software platform. Automotive and industry further increased earnings despite significant investments in a completely new Manufacturing Execution System (MES) based on the JSCADA and ASM standard modules. The logistics business grew dynamically, improved its profitability and attained one of Germany's largest logistics service providers as a new customer.

Infrastructure Management (transportation and safety) stopped the decline in sales of previous years and grew by 6 % to 24.9 million euros (31 December 2016: 23.5 million euros). The growth was generated in the public transport business, while in Asia at PSI Incontrol sales and earnings were burdened by value adjustments on receivables from an integration partner and structural measures in India, so that the overall operating result was negative at 0.4 million euros (31 December 2016: 0.1 million euros). In Southeast Asia, PSI is pushing ahead with the expansion of the higher-margin software business, especially in the sectors SmartCity, gas and logistics.

The number of employees in the group increased by 46 to 1,665 as of 31 December 2017 (31 December 2016: 1,619). Cash flow from operations decreased to 1.2 million euros (31 December 2016: 13.3 million euros), mainly due to significantly lower advance payments from Russian and German network operators (shadow year). Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year were 38.1 million euros (31 December 2016: 43 million euros), so that PSI still has sufficient funds for targeted acquisitions. As approved by the Supervisory Board, the Board of Directors will recommend a dividend of 0.23 euros (previous year: 0.22 euros) to the Annual General Meeting.

In 2017, PSI continued the technological and operational transformation from a regional contract developer to an international software product house for controlling and optimizing energy and material flows. Following the conversion of the production management products, all non-real-time products in the energy segment will now be converted to the group technology platform, whereby the PSI Click-Design Technology developed for customers reduces the effort. At the end of the year, PSI put high availability, high-performance and scalable application hosting into operation (PSI Cloud), since established cloud providers do not provide sufficient availability and real-time guarantees.

Following the increase in maintenance and upgrade contracts to 57.9 million euros (31 December 2016: 52.4 million euros), license revenues are expected to increase again in 2018 not only operationally but also through modernization of contract and perception practices. Overall, the PSI Board of Directors expects an increase in sales in the upper single-digit percentage range for 2018 and a low double-digit improvement in the EBIT.

On the basis of its own software products, PSI Group develops and integrates complete solutions for energy management (energy networks, energy trading), production management (mining, metals, automotive, mechanical engineering, logistics) and infrastructure management for transport and safety. PSI was founded in 1969 and employs more than 1,650 people worldwide.